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Matera - The Passion, by Mel Gibson (2004)

Index

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Introduction ..............................................................................................p. 7

The 50s ....................................................................................................p. 11 The 60s ................................................................................................p. 131964 – The Gospel according to St. Matthew ..............p. 17The 70s ..........................................................................................p. 231979 – Christ stopped at Eboli .....................................p. 25

The 80s .....................................................................................p. 33

The 90s .................................................................................p. 35From 2000 onwards ....................................................p. 392002 – I am not scared ............................................p. 412004 – The Passion of the Christ ..................p. 43

From ’05 to ’07 ........................................................p. 51

ItinerariesMovie Tour 1:

Matera like Jerusalem .......................p. 55Movie Tour 2:

Villages in the cinema .....................................p. 63Movie Tour 3:

Cinema landscapes in Lucania ..............................p. 67 HighlightsFilm Festivals ..............................................................................................p. 75Film exhibitions ..........................................................................................p. 79The most important films made in Basilicata ..............p. 80

val d’Agri, landscape

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Introduction

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In over 50 years, more than forty films have been made in Basilicata, or Lucania as it was once called. Neo-re-alism, true stories, biblical films of awe-inspiring spirituality, stories of universally recognisable monsters. And then demons, portraits of the farming world, comedies all’italiana, costume dramas, dreams, mira-cles and magic. The world of great filmmaking has passed through here. For more than half a century, this land of a thousand faces has contin-ued to amaze Italian and international filmmakers alike with its delights and its haunting qualities. Basili-cata is home to places and stories whose grandeur is well suited to the silver screen. The Sassi of Matera, the moon-like landscape of the ravines, the sun-drenched lands of Mount Vulture, the tiny villages studded into the mountainsides. The whole of Basilicata is a stage set. The scenery of Lucania, in the eyes of the seventh art, represents the soul of the South, it is perceived as a historical experience, as a theatrical setting which inspires authors, scriptwriters and directors. The vision of Basilicata projected onto the silver screen is impressed on the soul of the spectator. As in a single

“When you look at Basilicata you see fields, vineyards, beautiful scenery.You see the earth as it was supposed to be” Francis Ford Coppola

frame, time seems to stand still and remain uncorrupted in the land of Lucania. The mechanical device that plumbs the depth of this world and its innumerable details sees a reality that is trans-formed into a performance, where scenery and history share a common destiny. This land, with its great generosity, also gives spirit and breath to other places. Basilicata has always been a star, in the new and old grammar of the cinema. The power of its scenery is of itself a wealth, of diverse languag-es, of dynamic colours, of meaning and charm, of meta-phors old and new, of ancient and mythical horizons. The spectator arriving here is taken on a journey through a universe of places, stories and emotions of great cin-ema. From Pier Paolo Pasolini to Francesco Rosi, from Dino Risi to Roberto Rossellini, from Luigi Di Gianni to the Taviani brothers, from Michele Placido to Giuseppe Tornatore, up to the modern day greats of Hollywood, with directors such as Mel Gibson and Catherine Hardwicke, Basilica-ta undoubtedly plays a leading role, as celebrat-ed in Hollywood as it is in Cinecittà. To come to Basilicata is to undertake a journey into the cinema, to discover new studios with ever changing sets: from the natural backdrops of the mountains and the sea to the small and larger urban areas, from the rocky architecture to the sense of unpolluted places, from the various languages to the fresh air that is there to be breathed. Basilicata is a set without boundaries.

This pocket guide offers a tale plus a journey, from the 50s to today, on the locations of the most important films made in Basilicata ever to be shown on the silver screen.

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inverti con pagina 10 Maratea, coast

Matera, glimpse of the Sassi

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It was the great director, author, screenwriter and film producer Carlo Lizzani, during his first experience with the movie camera while he was filming Viaggio a Sud (Journey to the South), who doc-umented and explored the South and chose Basilicata to relate the conditions of the time. In Nel Mezzogiorno qualcosa è cambiato (Something has changed in the South) (1949) he showed images of underprivileged families, potholed roads with communal wash-houses, dirty starving children picking the fleas off each other, tum-bledown dwellings, alleyways steeped in misery and poverty. Matera was the town sadly known for this desolation, and ten years later it was declared a “national disgrace”, with the caves dug out of the rock being used as homes of an “aching beauty both eloquent and touching.” Thus was inaugurated the season of Matera’s neo-realism, the camera show-ing the Sassi with their truth to be told. Although they are only a backdrop without identity, the neigh-bourhoods made of tuff stone became a recog-nised part of cinematic imagery; they classify a genre which uses the ap-pearance of the town as the inspiration for the set-ting of a film that touches the conscience of the spectator, as well as giv-ing him hope for redemp-

The 50s

tion. With its picturesque qualities, unique and versatile, the city of the Sassi in the 50s acted as the set for costume dramas: from the neighbourhood drama Le due sorelle (The two sisters) (1950) by Mario Volpe to La Lupa (The She-wolf) (1953) by Alberto Lattuada, a film with a neo-realistic theme based on the literary masterpiece and screenplay of the same name by Giovanni Verga. The Sassi of Matera stand before the movie camera as a tragic backdrop which is used to show not their own story but, through a neo-realistic nar-rative, the degree of backwardness in the whole of the rural world, in Lucania as in the rest of the South.

The film la Nonna Sabella (Grandma Sabelle) (1957) by Dino Risi, based on a novel by Pasquale Festa Campanile, gives rise to a certain amount of uncertainty; it talks about Basilicata, but it is impossible to trace back to the places chosen by the director. After this opus by Risi, who used the comic abilities of Tina Pica for village humour, to great effect in certain scenes, the film Italia 61 (Italy ’61) (1961) by Jan Lenica gave a 360° vision of the city of Matera. Circarama, or circle vision, used in the making of the film, is cinema on a 360° circular screen, a technique invented and patented by Walt Disney with highly original methods of shooting and projecting the film. With the Circarama technique the spectators are completely surrounded by the moving scenes and they feel like part of the action. Italia 61 makes an extraordinary document in which the city of the Sassi is portrayed in full relief. In the 60s also Maratea, “the pearl of the Tyr-rhenian” was immortalised, first in the film A porte chiuse (Behind closed doors) (1960) by Dino Risi in which some exterior lo-cations were shot, then in La Vedovella (The Little Widow) (1962) by Silvio Siani in which the celebrated and renowned small town square in the old quarter acts as a background for a comedy all’italiana. In Anni Ruggenti (Fervent Years) (1962) by Luigi Zampa, a film set in the year 1937, the Sassi of Matera fit into the shots without seeming out of place: the yawning ravine, the cave houses and the surround-ing area are engulfed in an ap-

The 60s

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Matera - Anni Ruggenti, by Luigi Zampa (1962), Salvo Randone and Nino Manfredi

palling degradation, in which the landscape shares the leading role with the action. Among the principal locations used by Luigi Zampa, the Malve district is the most important area, where the story takes place, starring, among others, a very young Nino Manfredi. The film Il Demonio (The Demon) (1963) by Brunello Rondi shows, along with the landscape and the spectacular stage sets of some shots, superstition and magic, witchcraft and the re-ligion of the people. The film seems to be an ethnographical study of the period, following in the footsteps of the research carried out

by Ernesto De Martino in Basilicata. Sasso Caveoso, its town square and its bell tower dominate scenes in which the inquisitive movie camera follows all the way into the canyons not only the characters but also the sublime and spiritual beauty of the environment towered over by the immensity of the Murgia. Other locations used by Brunel-lo Rondi are the Sanctuary of the Palomba in Matera, the splendid Montescaglioso Abbey and some places in the township of Miglioni-co, an area famous for the Malconsiglio Castle. Stardust, the miracle of cinema, arrived in the rocky capital in 1964: Matera burst onto the screens in the cinema masterpiece Il Vangelo secondo Matteo - The Gospel according to St. Matthew by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Miglionico, Malconsiglio Castle

Matera, Sassi

The gospelaccording to St. Matthew

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Pasolini’s filmmaking is art and poetry. The director chose Matera as the setting for his Gospel. Born from the depths of the earth, the Sassi as revealed in the Gospel according to St. Matthew are the theatre for an extraordinary story, human and divine. Matera is the Jerusalem where Christ not only came down, but where he was born and died. After inspecting various sites in the Holy Land and in Jor-dan, Pasolini chose Matera because it was a land not yet colonised by power and untouched, without signs of modernity; to him the moon-like landscape, the rocky desert of the Murgia of Matera represent-

by Pier Paolo Pasolini Italy (1964)

“Rocky desert of Palestine?No,the Sassi di Matera”!

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ed the continuation of lives similar to those evoked. Pa-solini therefore decided to film his biblical work there, from the annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary to Christ’s resurrection. He made his film using many non-professional actors, friends and acquaintances. His mother Susanna played the role of Mary during the days of the passion. His rev-olutionary Christ had deep roots in the countryside and the land. Thus the man-ger of miracles, the Sassi of Matera, with the rocky churches and the Murgia, projected back in time, take on an atmosphere that is archaic and timeless, magical, distant even in space from the real atmosphere of the town. Three of the most important sets staged include: in Sasso Barisano, in via Lombardi and via Fiorentini. The locations were chosen as the settings for the most important moments of the Way of the Cross and the flight of the apostle Simon during Jesus’s walk to Golgotha. In Porta Pistola, the second set, reconstructed as the entrance to Jerusalem, Paso-

lini’s Christ arrives to the exulta-tion of the multitudes waving olive branches in the wind. There were hundreds of extras cheering the arrival of the prophet and wav-ing palms. The scene, repeated over and over, was shot from many different angles. The third set was Golgotha, a spur of rock jutting out over the deep gorge of the rocky precipice of Matera,

Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.Cast: Enrique Irazoqui,Margherita Caruso, Susanna Pasolini, Marcello Morante, Mario Socrate, Settimio Di Porto, Otello Sestili, Ferruccio Nuzzo, Giacomo Morante, Giorgio Agamben, Ninetto Davoli, Paola Tedesco. First viewing: XXV Venice Film Festival, 4 September 1964.

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in the area of Murgia Timone, on the Belvedere, opposite the breathtaking sight of the Sassi of Matera. This haunting and mys-tical backdrop is the setting for the final scenes of the Passion of Christ. Pasolini was the first to place the three crosses in the ground here.

Barile like Bethlehem

Along with the landscape of the Sassi of Matera, Barile was also chosen by Pasolini for the scenes of the nativity, the visit of the Magi, the flight of the holy family to Egypt and the unforgettable massacre of the innocents. The village of Arbëreshë, at the foot of Mount Vulture, had been pre-viously impressed on the mind of the director when he visited the

The story of the life of Jesus: the birth of Christ, the madness of Herod, the exile in Egypt, the return to Jerusalem. After per-suading twelve fishermen to follow him, Jesus of Nazareth begins to proclaim his truth, his desire for justice, the hypocrisy of the rich and the Pharisees. A secular film which underlines the humanity rather than the divinity of a severe Jesus, pug-nacious and medieval, weighed down by sadness and solitude. When a director succeeds in reconciling Matthew’s text with the autobiography and the pas-sion with the ideology, it is the film of a poet. In a theological sense, it is a gospel without hope. With its formal syncretism, the pictorial references, the scarcity of light, the evocation of a Third World that is no longer only pre-history, it achieves strong epic and religious tones. Dedicated to the memory of Pope John XXIII.

SINOPSIS

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Museum of Arts and Popular Tradi-tions in EUR in Rome, where he was overwhelmed by the paintings he saw showing images and landscapes of The Way of the Cross which takes place every year in the village of Barile. Memorable are the scenes shot in Bar-ile where King Herod’s soldiers, with swords and all kinds of metal headpiec-es, tear the babies - rag dolls – to piec-es and hurl them to the ground among the pots. The female figures and the misery of the time burst authentically and forcefully onto the scene. Today the cave-cellars of Barile, after years of being abandoned in the midst of rubble and waste, have returned to the light of art, thanks to the interest of anthropo-logical research and cinema. At present “Sheshi” conserves the highly prized wine Aglianico del Vulture D.O.C. in its characteristic tuffaceous hypogeum.

XXV Venice Film Festival: Special Jury PrizeOCIC Prize (Office Catholique International du Cinéma) Cineforum Prize, Prize from the Union International de la Critique de Cinema (UNICRIT) Catholic League Prize for Cinema and Television of RFTCity of Imola Grifone d’oro Grand prize OCIC, Assisi, 27 September 1964 Prix d’excellence, IV technical film competition, Milano Caravella d’argento, international Festival of Lisbon, 26 February 1965 Nastro d’Argento 1965 for direction, photography and costumes

PRIZES AND AWARDS

• In the nativity scene, the baby (Pasqualino Gioseffi, a few months old) chosen by Pa-solini was replaced at the last moment by a new-born girl with golden curls, Nicoletta Sepe. Today the same woman, herself a mother, is still alive and living in the village of Arbëreshë.

• Immacolata Rocco, a local woman, went to the “Sheshi posht” caves with her baby daughter Laura in her arms for the scenes of the “Massacre of the Innocents”. To defend her child from the virulence of the unsuspecting Roman soldier, the mother pushed him with all her might to the dusty ground. The unexpected action, spontaneous and rapid, took Pasolini by surprise. He called it “true and authentic”.

• When Pasolini was looking for extras for the roles of priests and Pharisees in Matera, he was quick to confess to the reporter Domenico Notarangelo who at the time wrote for the newspaper l’Unità, that he wanted “slow-witted, fascist-like” faces, to use a eu-phemism. By a strange twist of fate, all of the 51 extras signed up by Notarangelo were members of the Commu-nist Party or worked for the Trade Union Headquarters.

• On the subject of the clearance and reclaiming of the ancient Sassi district, and noticing that the inhabitants of the Sassi were all leaving to go and live in the new areas of the city, Pasolini pro-nounced these words: “You are committing a crime”. For him, Matera represented the place of the soul and to empty the Sassi was to deal it a mortal blow. Pasolini with these words preceded Carlo Levi, predicting the decline of a patrimony that would return to life and be declared World Heritage about thirty years later.

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FACTS AND CURIOSITIES Barile, cave - cellars “Sheshi”

In the mid-60s, after the film by Nanni Loy Made in Italy (1965), divided into eleven episodes one of which was filmed in Matera, the city returned to the silver screen with the film C’era una volta (Cin-derella – Italian style) by Francesco Rosi (1967). The landscape reigns supreme in the fairy tale inspired by Lo cunto deli cunti by Giambattista Basile, starring Sophia Loren and Omar Sharif. Magic, rituals, witch-craft, as in the film by Brunello Rondi, almost a continuation of De Martino’s anthropological research, represented in the light of a fairy tale, a new allegory revisited by the director, starring the land of the Matera hills. One of the places im-mortalised, Recupa Farm, set in splendid rolling countryside.

Fairy talesfrom the 60s

Matera Hills, Recupa Farm

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The 70s

The 70s opened with Il Decamerone Nero (The Black Decameron) by Piero Vivarelli (1972), an erotic comedy humorous in parts, fol-lowed in the same year by Lucio Fulci’s film Non si sevizia un paperi-no (Don’t torture a duckling), the first thriller to be filmed entirely in Italy in an imaginary town in the South of Italy, Accettura. Considered one of the fundamental operas of the Italian thriller, it was inspired by a true story which took place in a village in Puglia, near the Lucania border. In 1974 Matera was the choice of a series of film produc-tions. The brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani made Allonsanfan in an attempt to conduct a political and melodramatic study on the story of the Restoration pe-riod. The piazza in San Pietro Caveoso was adapted and a few glimpses of the Sassi dis-tricts give the impression of a small town in the South of Ita-ly at the time of the Restora-tion. This was the same year as Tempo dell’inizio (Time of the beginning) by Luigi Di Gi-anni, a drama with a touch of fantasy in which the Sassi of Matera contribute to the haunted atmosphere, shot in a black and white that cap-tures the extravagance and the surreal character of the place. Among the many reels

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that have immortalised the Sassi of Matera, and in particular the Malve district in Sasso Caveoso, there is also Anno Uno (Year One) by Roberto Rossellini. A forgotten and little appreciated film except for its being excessively fictitious, it was a disaster both commercially and in the eyes of the critics. In the film L’albero di Guernica (The tree of Guernica) (1975) by the director and poet Ferdinando Arrabal, the backdrop of the ancient Sassi districts is diffused with an inspired and make-believe character. The Sassi of Matera became the little town in Castile where the tree, during the Nazi bombings, is the only thing that remains standing. In the same year, in the picaresque story Qui comincia l’avventura (The adventure starts here) (1975) by Carlo di Palma, the rocky capital of southern Italy stars as a village in Puglia from which two women leave, attracted by the myth of freedom for women and the desire for ad-venture. About three years later in Matera, Alberto Negrin filmed Vo-lontari per destinazione ignota (Volunteers for an unknown destina-tion) (1978), starring a young Michele Placido, and the city of the Sassi, although this time playing itself, is the background, for short sequences, to a story of manual labourers from Luca-nia who decide to join the Army to colonise West Africa, but end up fighting for Franco in Cadiz against other Italians.

Matera, S. Pietro Caveoso

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Christstopped at

eboli by Francesco Rosi Italy (1979)

“Down to this dark land, without sin and without redemption, where evil is not moral,but is an earthly grief,that is always present inside things, Christ did not descend.Christ stopped at Eboli.”

Inner space, place of the soul, Lucania in the film of the great direc-tor Francesco Rosi represents the paradigm of the South, archaic and isolated. Christ stopped at Eboli is the film version of Carlo Levi’s opera, “a tale rather than an inquest” as Rosi himself said. An es-say that intellectuals and filmmakers from then on would consider a constant point of reference. Christ stopped at Eboli was published by Giulio Einaudi in 1945 and is the most famous work of the writer, painter and doctor Carlo Levi, who tells the story of his confinement in Basilicata under the Fascist regime. Eboli therefore represents not only the geographical but also the historical border of a world. Be-cause Eboli is the town where the road and the railway track abandon the coastline and enter the arid, desolate lands of Basilicata. The film was shot in Aliano, the place where the writer was exiled, Craco, the area of the gullies and in the Monacelle and De Laurentis farms in Matera in the area of Iesce and Guardia Perticara.

Craco, old town

Craco, the ghost town

The eyes of the cinema have immortalised it forever: “Craco is a flower cut off at the stalk that is slowly lowering its co-rolla.” The town, after know-ing times of glory and honours was destroyed in 1962 by a terrible landslide that marked its eternal end. In Christ stopped at Eboli, Craco is an open film set; its narrow houses, the calcareous rock, its tiny streets and steep flights of steps, dominated by a Norman tower and a 12th century castle, make it, in the words of Rocco Scotellaro, the set “of the most passionate and cruel monuments of our towns.”

“I wanted to find elements to make up the ideal geogra-phy”, commented Francesco Rosi, “considering the choice of the set, I chose Craco, a village almost in ruins, be-cause Levi in his book men-tions this piece of wasteland. I wanted to find a surround-ing countryside similar to that of Aliano because the village has changed a great deal since Levi’s time, there are modern buildings, elec-tricity poles. So I had to look for a third village, Guardia Perticara, to get the ideal place. “I will use Matera, an important town from an ar-chaeological point of view

In 1934, the fascist regime exiled Carlo Levi, an antifascist intellectual, doctor and writer from Turin, to Aliano, an isolated village in Lucania.During his stay there, he became a friend and supporter of the local people.

SINOPSIS

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Director : Francesco Rosi. Screenplay : Tonino Guerra, Raffaele La Capria, Francesco Rosi. Cast: Gian Maria Volonté, Irene Papas, Lea Massari, Alain Cuny, Paolo Bonacelli, Stavros Tornes, Antonio Allocca, François Simon.

with its area of the Sassi, to re-construct the crowd scenes in the book that refer to the mental-ity and the customs of the people. Christ stopped at Eboli gave a major contribution to a new way of looking at Basilicata outside its geographical limits and, owing to

its decline as a subject in the fields of painting and literature, gave birth to a new means of getting to know it. Like the book, the film critically explores the outdated society of Lucania through a personal story, telling it as an opportunity for individual change that touches the values and concepts that we have of life and of the world. The movie camera steals images of the rugged mountains, previously painted by Levi during his exile, of the environment, the places and the men living in inadequately furnished houses. “You only need,” Rosi went on to say, “to look at the landscape, the countryside, the trees, the skies, the parched fields, the arid hills, the lonely footpaths cap-tured by the movie camera, to see an image that symbolises a sort of atavistic fate, an unchangeable destiny.” However, Rosi goes beyond Levi’s vision and shows a complex and multiform image of Basilicata. The film passes through the four seasons, from autumn to spring, and Rosi captures the richness of diverse languages in the changing

Craco, rugged mountains

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landscape. “Because there are not only gullies and landslides, but also deep green valleys, even snatches of forest that remind us of what it must have been like at one time.“It felt right to point out that those regions contain resourc-es that could be developed, it is not all desolation. For the same reason, I have played down the part that refers to magic and religion, because if I had delved into it, I would have run the risk of generalising, perhaps authoris-ing the unwary spectator to be-lieve the usual clichés about the South.” To interpret Rosi’s film, it is necessary to approach it from a historical perspective, in fact it defines new discussions on the subjects of the southern Italian idiom and national politics, in the society of the time, during and af-ter. Rosi concentrates more on the socio-political implications of Levi’s inquiry, which are far from being outdated and can today open up a new perspective on the

1982 - Best Foreign Film British Academy of Film and

Television Arts Awards

1979 - David di Donatello for Best Film 1979 - Grand Prize Moscow

1979 - David di Donatello for Best Director Francesco Rosi

PRIZES AND AWARDS

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alienation of politics and the exclusion from power of the masses, not only in Basilicata. (The television version of the work, a quarter of an hour longer and divided into four episodes, gives ample scope to this perspective.) From the book Christ stopped at Eboli“I arrived in Matera (the sister recounts) at about eleven o’clock in the morning. I had read in the guide book that it was a picturesque town, worth being visited, that there was a museum of ancient art and some curious troglodytic house… leaving the station, I met a road, lined with old houses only down one side, while the other bor-dered on a precipice. In that precipice is Matera... That gorge had a strange shape; like two half funnels side by side, separated by a little spur and joined together at the bottom in a single apex, where you could see, from up there, a white church, Santa Maria de Idris, that looked as if it was wedged into the ground. Those upside down cones, those funnels, are called the Sassi. Their shape is what we imagined at school, thinking of Dante’s hell… in that tight space, between their faces and the slope, run the roads, which are at the same time pave-ments for those who come out of their houses above and roofs for those for those below… raising my eyes, I finally saw the whole of Matera appear, like a leaning wall… It really is a beautiful city, pictur-esque and moving.”

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FACTS AND CURIOSITIES• “It was a long and difficult film to work on,” says Gianmaria Volonté. “Coming and going from Matera to the villages where we were filming, which had no ho-tels, we were doing two hundred and forty kilometres a day. A tiring journey, especially after nine or ten hours of work, and such a painstaking job. We had a great relationship with the locals. We met some extraordinary people, who were willing to talk and were really interested in what we were doing.”

• The wall in Craco is the wall of miracles. In the background of the photo of Carlo Levi’s ar-rival in Gagliano (Aliano), where the wall is part of the set, its colour took on different tones and hues during our preparations, which took several days. Travellers arriving on the bus, whose stop is only a few steps away, were amazed at the meta-morphosis undergone by the place, considering it the effect of a holy miracle. So the rumour started and the wall became a place of pilgrimage, ending up taking on a leading role in a story that was destined to stay firmly impressed in the minds of the people for a very long time.

• In a letter to Levi dated 12 March 1948, Rocco Scotel-laro asked how “the filming was going”, announcing that he had “begun to work on the pitch, the treatment being the re-sponsibility of the technicians.” Levi, in his reply of April 1948, informed him about the way that his work was being reduced for the screen, specifying however that the director “had prepared a pitch, or rather a treatment that was completely wrong and unac-ceptable,” for which reason he considered it necessary to look for “another director”. He informed Scotellaro that he wanted to be the one to “draft the pitch from the book”.

• Scotellaro’s adaptation of Levi’s text was also interrupted

for various reasons that impeded the production of the film, and dur-

ing 1949, first director Vittorio De Sica worked on the film, and then di-

rector Roberto Rossellini, who was in Tricarico with Levi at the beginning of

January 1950. At that time, until 1951, Scotellaro’s interest in the matter and

his various attempts to produce the film after the withdrawal of Rossellini are well

documented, in several letters from Levi to Scotellaro and from Scotellaro to others

(Michele Prisco, Tommaso Pedio, Antonio Mangiamele).

• Linuccia Saba, Carlo Levi’s partner, painted a clear picture in her letter to Scotellaro at the end

of 1951 when she said, “It seems to me that the story of this film claims that certain women who are

really beautiful will end up old maids.”

• “The first time I showed this film outside Italy was in Chicago, at a festival where there were three thousand

people. I was scared and I said to myself, “What will these people understand, in America, in Chicago? What

will they understand of the gullies, the burnt lands, the farm workers?” Well, at the end of the film they were all

crying”. Francesco Rosi.

FACTS AND CURIOSITIES

Aliano, Carlo Levi’s house during his exile

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“Those people and those plac-es get into your heart and it is not easy to get them out again.” So Francesco Rosi came back once again to Basilicata, to Mat-era in 1981 to film I Tre Fratelli (The Three Brothers). Loosely based on Andrei Platonov’s book “The third son”, it is a film about memories and, at the same time, about Italian society in the 80s and it tells the tale of the death of the farming community. The film was made on a farm not

The 80s

far from Matera and the Sassi are hardly noticed. An appear-ance is made only by a couple of courtyards in the more mod-ern part of the town, a building that represents a rehabilitation centre in Naples and a Piazza in Matera Alta. The convent church in Miglionico is the setting for the scenes in which Vitto-rio Mezzogiorno plays the piano. Quarantotto beach on the Ionic coast was the place chosen by the director to play out the loss of the ring in the sand, while some glimpses of Basentana, in the area of Campomaggiore, show Michele Placido immortalised as he travels along the main road of the region.In 1985 Matera, the manger of miracles, became the home to a new biblical epic. King David, directed by Bruce Beresford, tells the story of David the shepherd boy, future king of Israel. Sasso Caveoso and the surrounding area once again represented the “Jerusalem of seventy names of love and desire.” The film was a total flop. The only star to shine in the firmament of the cinema was Richard Gere in the leading role: “It’s true,” as he said to the newspapers of the time, “it wasn’t a success for me, but I would do it all over again because it brought me to an amazing city like Matera that I wouldn’t have visited otherwise.”

Ancient Campomaggiore

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The 90s

The 90s opened with an Italian production. The brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani chose some places in the Matera countryside and the Sassi as their setting for southern Italy and the 1700s. Il sole anche di notte (Night Sun) (1990) is the story of Father Ser-gio, based on the book of the famous Russian author Lev Nicolaevic Tolstoy. Considered by most a work of art, others found it a colourless film, as was written in the newspapers of the time: “a pose rather than an inspiration, Tolstoyan without Tolstoyism.” It is a rather con-troversial film, in which Matera appears in some scenes. The shots focus on the terrace and the pi-azza in front of the noble palazzo of the lead char-acter, which is situated below the rocky church of the Madonna dell’Idris and alongside the church of San Pietro Caveoso. A few glimpses of the city, interiors of buildings and the surrounding land-scape are the backdrop to the retreated lifestyle of the baron from Lucania in his quest for spirituality. In the cast, the young and

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promising Matera-born actor Carlo de Ruggeri. Deeply rooted in the scenery, the mystical dimension of the place is ideal for cinematic transfigurations. Therefore, the capital of Lucania cin-ema, in Giuseppe Tornatore’s film of 1995 L’uomo delle stelle (The star maker), becomes the Sicily of the fifties, where a certain Joe Morelli, played by Sergio Castellitto, swindles the poor lo-cals by promising them dreams of glo-ry. The cinema, far from being a dream maker, in this film is an illusion maker. Joe Morelli’s non-existent filmmaking company in Rome organises paid auditions, promising sparkling futures. Matera, the Sassi and San Pietro Caveoso are the backdrop, an extension of the fake stu-dio, they too transformed into a Sicilian landscape. Many locals took part in the making of the film as extras. Castellitto himself stated in an interview that, “L’uomo delle stelle is a film about a timeless subject regarding Sicily, and I had fun examining this theme as an allegory. It’s the other side of the coin, the cinema… as a disappoint-ment, a defeat, the negation of the dream... L’uomo delle stelle was a happy film, a pleasure to make. The set was simple, cheerful, with these non-actors always around.” Not only Matera, but also the smaller towns welcome film produc-tions, which succeed in telling the story of the customs and traditions of the local people thanks to the works they produce. Such is the case

of the film Del perduto amore (Of lost love) (1998), written and di-rected by Michele Placido, starring Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Sergio Rubini and Enri-co Lo Verso, filmed in the old quar-ter of Irsina and in some parts of Ferrandina and Matera.A film of civil commitment, burst-ing with political and ideological passion that tells how the exist-ence of some people, touching the lives of others, can change their destiny. Michele Placido succeeds in portraying characters who are modest and disciplined, qualities which he himself sees reflected in the Lucania community. The follow-ing year, the critic and video maker Fabio Segatori arrived in Basilicata to make the film Terra Bruciata (Parched Earth) (1999). Set on the Murgia, in some small Basilicata villages including Aliano, Stigliano and Senise with its magnificent beaten earth dam, the biggest in Europe, it also shows some inter-esting corners of the city of Matera and the interiors of some rocky churches. Gunfights, vendettas and Camorrist clans, the film which stars Raul Bova, Michele Placido and Giancarlo Giannini amongst others, is an Italian-style western that unsuccessfully attempts to imitate a certain Hong Kong type of cinema.

Senise, dam

Maratea, Christ Redeemer

The new century opens un-der the banner of comedy and pathos. Maratea and its Christ are immortalised in Piero Chiambretti’s film Ogni lasciato è perso (Every dumped boyfriend is lost) (2000). The statue of the Redeemer, the tallest in the world after the one in Rio de Janeiro, is one of the bosom friends of the hero, the fa-mous anchorman of the tel-evision show “That’s amore” who, left by his girlfriend, falls prey to a depression and seeks comfort from the Messiah of Maratea, as well as his analyst. From a height of 28 metres, the Maratea Christ represents faith, the last hope that relieves the hero of his heartache.

From 2000 onwards

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Melfi - Io non ho paura, by Gabriele Salvatores (2002)

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At the dawn of the new millennium, Basilicata with its natural theatres was ideal as a setting for stories with a universal charac-ter. It was the year 2002, when Gabriele Salvatores was travelling along the Naples-Bari motorway in the direction of Candela, that he came across corn-covered hills as far as his eye could see and was transfixed. That was how the landscape of Vulture Melfese captured the atten-tive and visionary gaze of one of the greatest Italian directors. When he reached the golden countryside he was stunned and chose it as the perfect place to set one of his most successful films, Io non ho paura. And it was in San Leonardo, better known as the Leonessa di Melfi, a magic, sun drenched, vast land, that the film was made. Amid the golden ears of corn, the story of the kidnapping of a young boy took form, set in four houses facing each other, sur-rounded by yellow hills, endless spaces and an ever present sky. The incident is seen through the eyes of a child, dominated by the primary colours of untouched na-ture. A fertile sight, of a hot and constantly sun-kissed place in the South of Italy.

I’m notscared by Gabriele

Salvatores Italy (2002)

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In the summer of 1978, in the village of Acque Traverse, a small group of young boys wan-der around in the suffocating heat. During an incursion into the surrounding countryside, Michele discovers a boy being held prisoner in an abandoned farmhouse. Without really un-derstanding what is going on, Michele starts taking care of the boy, and discovers that his parents are somehow mixed up in the affair.

Director: Gabriele Salvatores. Cast : Diego Abatantuono, Dino Abbrescia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Giuseppe Cristiano, Mattia Di Pierro.

2004 - David di Donatello for Best Photography to Italo Petriccione 2004 - David di Donatello prize “David giovani” 2003 - Nastro d’Argento for Best Director Gabriele Salvatores 2003 - Nastro d’Argento for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Diego Abatantuono 2003 - Nastro d’Argento for Best Photography to Italo Petriccione

PRIZES AND AWARDS

SINOPSIS

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The Passionof the Christ by Mel Gibson Usa - Italy (2004)

After half a century of history, Matera continues today to hold the record as the filmmaking capital of Lucania. Mystical and spir-itual, even in the new millennium it represents the Holy Land. A true prodigy of the cinema, its “cultural landscape” is once again under the spotlight in one of the most talked about films in the history of cinema. Crude, violent, radical. Courageous, reckless, cultured and popular at the same time, The Passion of the Christ – La Passione di Cristo (2004), by the Australian actor and director Mel Gibson, is the true miracle that takes place among the Sassi of Matera, the Jerusalem of Lucania at the centre of spiritual filmmaking. The story tells of the last twelve hours of Jesus Christ, from his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane to his trial before the Sanhedrim, to his flogging, up to his death on the cross and his resurrec-tion. Some scenes in the film are taken from the book The Painful Passion of Our Lord Je-sus Christ by Anna Katharina Emmerick and from The Mysti-cism of God by Maria di Agreda. Filmed entirely in the languages of Latin and Aramaic to recre-ate a greater historical realism and authenticity, the film uses

Matera, Via Muro - The Passion (2004)

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shocking images to capture at-tention, with the aim of giving a clear picture of the spirit of sac-rifice, the pain of an extraordinary figure like that of Jesus Christ. Matera of the new millennium is revealed in all its magnificence and the director, exploring its centuries-old places, was amazed at its similarity with some areas of Judea. “The architecture of the city,” declared Mel Gibson to report-ers of the time, “the rocks, the surrounding countryside have provided us with an incompara-ble backdrop. The first time I saw Matera I just went crazy, it was simply perfect.” It was described in national newspapers as “the bloodiest set in the history of the cinema”, it presented us with views of corners and landscapes

The film relates the last twelve hours of life of Jesus of Naza-reth. After the Last Supper, Je-sus goes to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he resists the temptations of Satan. Betra-yed by Judas Iscariot, Jesus is ar-rested and taken within the walls of Jerusalem where the Pharise-es accuse him of blasphemy and condemn him to death. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Palestine who is asked to de-liberate, after listening to the accusations offers the angry mob a choice: whether to spare him or the well known criminal Barrabas. Jesus, flogged by the Roman soldiers, is once again brought before Pontius Pilate who, since the people have cho-sen to spare Barrabas, washes his hands to show that he has no wish to be involved in the choice. Jesus is forced to walk through Jerusalem and to climb up Gol-gotha carrying his cross on his shoulders. At the top of the hill, nails are driven into his hands and feet and the cross is raised before the grief-stricken eyes of his mother Mary and the pious women, among whom Mary Magdalene. Jesus confronts his final temptation, that of being abandoned by his Father, then at three o’clock in the afternoon he dies while the sky is torn by light-ning and the veil of the temple of Jerusalem is rent in two.

SINOPSIS

46

with a hauntingly spiritual quality. One of the most important sets mounted for The Passion of the Christ was via Muro, in the ancient quarter of Civita, where Christ underwent his torment.The spectacular flight of steps was the site of the cruellest scenes of Gibson’s work, in which a great number of local extras, recruited while the film was being shot, appeared together with professional actors. Just a few steps away from the place of the passion is Porta Pistola, the same site chosen by Pier Paolo Pasolini to represent the entrance to Jerusalem, staged with a monumental set design characterised by Arabic-style decorative elements. Not far from here, on the road from Sasso Barisano to Sasso Caveoso, in the magnificent rock complex of San Nicola dei Greci and Madonna delle Virtù, the set was prepared for the scene of the Last Supper in which Jesus declares that he will be betrayed by one of his disciples. Towering over the surrounding countryside, mystical and spiritual, is Mount Golgotha, a spur of rock that drops down to the Precipice in the Murgia Park in Matera, the place where the culminating event in the human life of Jesus takes place, the Crucifixion. Another set in this Jerusalem of Lucania is Vico Solitario, in the

Malve district, filled with stalls and wares to represent the market and meeting place of the community of the time. Beyond the Canyon, Radogna Farm is transformed into the home of Jesus, where we see some flash-backs of his life as a child.

Director: Mel Gibson. Cast: James Caviezel, Maia Morgen-stern, Monica Bellucci, Mattia Sbra-gia, Hristo Shopov, Claudia Gerini, Luca Lionello, Hristo Jivkov, Rosalin-da Celentano, Sabrina Impacciatore, Francesco De Vito, Toni Bertorelli, Fabio Sartor, Sergio Rubini, Giacinto Ferro, Olek Mincer.

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2005 - Nastro d’Argento for Best Set Design2005 - Nastro d’Argento for Best Costumes

PREMI E RICONOSCIMENTI

Craco: the ghost town returns to the silver screen

Craco, the ghost town already a star in films by big name directors, was one of the locations outside the city that welcomed the Hollywo-od company who went there to shoot some of the scenes of the han-ging of Judas. A cinema location as famous in Cinecittà as it is in Hollywood, the ancient Graeculum has a millenary history, and is one of the most evocative and magical towns ever to be conserved on a reel of film. Today its appearance of a deserted village makes it the ideal setting for biblical films.

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• The city of Matera’s response to the presence of the Hollywood

machine is discreet, since the townspeople are used to seeing film-

making companies in the streets. But Gibson’s organisation was immense.

Production caravans and trucks in-vaded the streets and squares of the

ancient Sassi districts. Most of the hotels in the old town centre were fully booked.

Walls were even torn down to accommo-date the needs of the Australian director.

A small table was brought to Mel Gibson’s hotel room, in the comfortable Albergo Italia,

situated in the heart of 18th century Matera, for his morning prayers. It was a common sight

to see him out in the evening, even in his slip-pers, smiling and friendly with everyone.

• Mel Gibson got up early in the morning, prayed for a long while and after dedicating himself to the

spirit, he devoted some time to his body with a little workout. Biblical and evangelical texts filled his mind.

He even asked Don Angelo, a local parish priest, to say the Mass in Latin, a way of demonstrating his

strong feelings for the traditions of the past. After re-ceiving permission from the Archbishopric, the Mass

was celebrated in the Sanctuary of the Palomba where Mel Gibson served as an altar boy. He spent a lot of time

in church, in particular in Miglionico, where he spent two days contemplating the Crucifixion of Christ in the basilica

of Santa Maria Maggiore, the home of the awe-inspiring polyptych by Cima da Conegliano. Mel Gibson talked in depth

with the local priests about the roles of several characters in the life of Jesus, and during a heated discussion with Don Ba-

silio Gavazzeni, he declared that he would be willing to sacrifice himself for Christ.

FACTS AND CURIOSITIES

49

• Mel Gibson appears in two scenes of the film, or, rather, his hands do. The first is when he drives the nails into the palms of Jesus’s hands, the second when he helps raise Mary Magdalene from the ground.

• Faith is a all-encompassing phenom-enon and the film on the passion of Christ has proved it. In fact, playing the role of Jesus Christ cannot have been easy for Jim Caviezel. Every day he said the rosary, took communion, prayed and walked around the Lucania Jerusalem of 2000 years ago blessing children, women and men that he met on his way.

• Nature itself, the wind, the sky, even lightning seem to have been called on to play their part in the film on the life of Jesus Christ. At the precise moment of the crucifixion and death of Christ, the sky turned black and was covered by clouds. Thunderbolts and lighting threatened the set of the set of the Hollywood epic, making it absolutely real and true to the scene narrated in the gospels. A popular myth tells that Gibson’s assistant director, Jan Michelini, was struck not once but twice by light-ning and that he was miraculously unharmed. In the final credits, his name was replaced by the nickname “The lightning boy”.

• Mel Gibson is the true saviour. The world’s newspapers brought Matera under the international spotlights. From the new world to the old, the Gibson effect transcends the bound-aries of reality. Stardust, from Hollywood, arrives in the Sassi districts. It is the most controversial and talked about film

FACTS AND CURIOSITY

among the religious communities. Jews and Christians join together

to give their views on the anti-Semitism of the work, on its sadism and its passionate violence and love.

Foreign TV stations and international newspapers come to the city for on-

the-spot reports. The Gibson effect increases and spirals. The film pro-vokes religious conversions, tears and

embarrassed silences, spiritual ecstasy and profound deliberation. Matera is the

background to this story, so cruel yet so true to itself that it seems almost touched by a divine miracle. Thus, the Jerusalem of

Lucania takes the first steps towards a new way of advertising itself: Film Tourism.

Matera, Murgia Park

From ‘05 to ‘07

About 3 years later, in 2005, Matera and its immediate surround-ings were chosen as the setting for Il Rabdomante (The Water-di-viner), a film by Fabrizio Cattani with Andrea Osvart, Pascal Zullino, an actor from Matera, Luciana De Falco and Riccardo Zinna. The film tells the story of Felice, a schizophrenic with the gift of water-di-vining. He succeeds in determining the presence of water under the ground, but comes up against the interests of Tonino (Ninì Cintanidd), a Mafioso who has his hands on the water business in a land where drought is a serious problem. All the elements are present in the plot of the film: parched earth, water which Felice talks to, air symbolised by the young and beautiful Harja and fire that tries to pos-sess all the elements, rep-resented by the boss Ninì Cintanidd. The daylight scenes are spectacular, filmed among the Sassi of Matera, in which Harja runs along the streets of Sasso Barisano and up the Murgia to avoid being captured by Ninì’s men. In the film, the colours and the light of the coun-tryside and the Murgia shine fiercely, becoming

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the co-stars of an original film which was made in association with the Coproducers, with the participation of public and pri-vate groups. In 2006 Matera was the location chosen for John Moore’s film The Omen, in which the ancient Sassi dis-tricts represent a small Israeli town in contemporary times. At a distance of thirty years, the director Moore remade Ri-chard Donner’s film the Omen. Opening strategically on the 6/6/06, it tells the story of a rich couple who discover to their horror that the boy they have adopted is the incarna-tion of the Antichrist. Five scenes were filmed in the Sas-si, showing the marketplace and a checkpoint in Jerusalem. After making many films on the subject of Christ, a film on the

Antichrist was set in Matera. But the power of mystery and spirituality of the age-old places of the city continued to draw the spotlights to the caves, where the birth of Jesus was to be filmed. In the same year, the director Catherine Hard-wicke filmed The Nativity Story (2006) in the Sassi of Matera. Starring Keisha Castle-Hughes, Oscar Isaac, Hiam Abbass, Shaun Toub and Ciarán Hinds, it tells the story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. After the annunciation of the birth of Christ, during their long-est journey, the two saints are called upon to demonstrate that they are worthy of receiving the incomparable gift bestowed upon them by overcoming temptations and difficulties. Hardwicke, like Pier Paolo Pasolini and Mel Gibson, chose Matera, confirming its symbolic role in films with a biblical theme. For five weeks they filmed in different locations: Selva Venusio, near Matera, where the village of Nazareth was reconstructed, the rocky complex of San Pietro in Principibus,

on the Murgia of Matera, which represented Bethlehem. Like Mel Gibson, Hardwicke too chose Via Muro as a set, but for the mar-ketplace, and the ghost town of Craco as the setting for the ancient village of Ginea and the scene of the annunciation. For its première, the film was shown in Vatican city. In 2007, in Basilica-ta, after an in-depth socio-anthro-pological investigation, the direc-tor Fulvio Wetzl, in collaboration with Valeria Vaiano, produced and directed the film Mineurs (that is a mix between “minors”

and “miners”). With the active participation of some local people. The story of Mineurs was told based on the account of a number of chil-dren and focused on the bitter experience of emigration, especially the emigration of the people of Lucania during the 50s and 60s. Belgium was the new home of a large number of fellow-countrymen who found work in the mines, a place that would destroy their lives. Some of the settings show the villages of Acerenza, Atella, Bella, Cancellara, Genzano di Lucania, Muro Lucano, Oppido Lucano, Rapolla, Rionero in Vulture, Ruoti, San Fele, Satriano di Lucania.

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From Matera, the set of film sets, begins a journey of discovery of the most evocative locations chosen by the great interna-tional filmmakers. The “manger of miracles” is unveiled by the di-rectors who staged their story

of Jesus Christ in those places that are so symbolic of the centu-

ries-old city: The Gospel according to St. Matthew by Pier Paolo Pa-solini (1964), King David by Bruce Beresford (1985), The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson (2003) and The Nativity Story by Cather-

ine Hardwicke (2006). The tour covers all the most important

sites of the evangelical nar-rative: spaces and places

that on the silver screen have revealed all their

splendour, delighting our eyes and mov-

ing our hearts.

Movie Tour 1

Matera like Jerusalem: From Pier Paolo Pasolini to Catherine Hardwicke.

VIA MUROPanoramic, stunning, spectacular. Via Muro is the starting point

of the tour on the Passion of Christ which has hosted the great

directors Mel Gibson and Catherine Hardwicke. In the film The

Passion of the Christ, Via Muro is the place on the Way of the

Cross where, in the midst of his Calvary, Jesus begins his journey

towards his destiny. Although

he denies it, Mel Gibson al-

lowed himself to be inspired

by the great Pier Paolo Paso-

lini who had previously chosen

Matera for its similarity to Pal-

estine. The maestro and poet,

who inaugurated biblical films

in the city of the Sassi, chose

instead Via Lombardi to film

the scenes of the Way of the

Cross. A road where human-

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ity and spirituality blend together, leaving space for the imagination and the unending horizon of Golgotha. In her film on the Nativity, Catherine Hardwicke designed a set around the spectacular flight of steps in Via Muro with a great door, exotic palm trees and stalls for the sale of wares, turn-ing it into a meeting place and market for the in-habitants of the village. Via Muro stretches as far as the ancient quarter of Civitas, where the ca-thedral arises majestically, with Piazza San Pietro Caveoso, where the church of San Pietro Caveoso stands, towering above the canyon.

SAN PIETRO CAVEOSO

Piazza San Pietro Caveoso, immortalised by great directors both Italian and foreign, was a location chosen also for other stage sets, by the Taviani brothers in their masterly film Il Sole anche di notte (1990), by Giuseppe Tornatore in L’uomo delle stelle (1995) and by Ferdinando Arrabbal in the film L’albero di Guernica (1975).

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Malve District

At the back of Piazza San Pietro Caveoso you go towards the Malve Quarter, an evocative film location where, in the Hol-lywood director Gibson’s film, the commercial activities of Je-rusalem are carried out. Stalls, exotic plants and utensils, jugs and furnishings of the time decorated the set of the ancient marketplace and the homes of Jerusalem. The place has a wealth of interest and history, and amidst the rocky churches and deep caves, the tribulations of the film King David were also set.

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Porta Pistola

The crossroads between the Sassi and Porta Postèrgola, bet-ter known as Porta Pistola, looks over the spectacular gullies of the canyon where the Gravina brook flows. The place, chosen by both Pier Paolo Pasolini and Mel Gibson, represents the Gates to the city of Jerusalem, the Holy Land, prepared with a monumental set design characterised by Ara-bic-style architectural elements.

Madonna delle Virtu’ and San Nicola dei Greci

Just a few steps away from the Gates of Jerusalem arises a mar-vellous rock complex: Madonna delle Virtù and San Nicola dei Greci where the scene of the Last Supper was filmed in the Hol-lywood epic. Words of love alternate with blood and nails, the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the whole of humanity before the cross is planted in the ground and raised on Golgotha, in Murgia Park, for his death and Resurrection.

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Murgia Park

Murgia Park, with its natural, historical and ecological patri-mony, is of exceptional value on a universal level. Beyond the canyon, like an island, it bursts into space without boundaries or obstacles. The scenery speaks of human tribulations from the very origin of life until our times, and its immense landscapes have inspired directors and writers. It was in the area of San Vito that Pier Paolo Pasolini decided to set the scene of the Holy Sepulchre and the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel.In The Passion of the Christ, on the other hand, the life of Jesus as a child is depicted, in an intense and mystical flashback, in one of the rural buildings of the area, Radogna Farm. Also Catherine Hardwicke reconstructed the village of Bethlehem in the Murgia Park – in the rocky church of San Pie-tro in Princibus – and, in Selva Venusio, the village of Nazareth.

Golgota

It is in Murgia Timone that Golgotha rises. Evocative and mysti-cal, it was the setting for the Crucifixion scenes in the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Mel Gibson. The Golgotha prepared by Hardwick sees the crosses as rep-resenting the death sentence of the time. Golgotha is the last stop in Matera on the biblical theme movie tour which leaves, in the eyes of the spectators, the enchanting images of the man-ger of miracles.

Movie Tour 2

The villages of the cinema: Craco, Aliano, Irsinaand Ferrandina.

The tour continues under the heading of the divine. It is not only the city of the Sassi, but also the country villages that

tell of the hardship of the life of Jesus Christ. The villages are also

the “backdrop” to the magic, with a landscape that is unique, moon-like, made up of abandoned histori-cal settings, full of the smiles and glances of people who come from a land with the history of the farming

community running through it, as related in Christ stopped at Eb-

oli (1978) by Francesco Rosi, as well as the stories in the

social microcosm of Del Perduto Amore (1998)

by Michele Placido, a portrayal of a society

behind the times.

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CracoThe medieval village of the

ghost town saw its first take

in 1978, with the filming of

Christ stopped at Eboli by

Francesco Rosi. Craco was

also the natural choice of set

for the films Il sole anche di

notte (1990) by the Taviani

brothers and Ninfa Plebea

(Plebeian Nymph) (1996)

by Lina Wertmüller. The lat-

ter speaks of Basilicata, but

there is some uncertainty

over the places chosen by the

director. These were followed

by the USA epics on the birth

of Christ: The Passion of the

Christ and The Nativity Story.

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In Mel Gibson’s film, the medi-

eval village of Craco, a place

where time stands still, is the

hill where Judas decides to

hang himself, under the eye of

the devil. Craco is also the stage

scene of Christ stopped in Eboli,

a work based on the cult book

by the poet Carlo Levi, which

tells of his exile in Lucania.

Aliano

From the ghost town to Gagliano (Aliano), the movie tour winds

is way through the harsh and moon-like landscape of the ravines

and comes to an end in the image depicted by the protector of the

South who gave a voice to the country people of Lucania, to the ag-

ricultural world of the South and to its civilization oppressed by his-

tory. A place forgotten by God, in both the literary work and its cin-

ematic adaptation, where the land-workers live

through a different experience, with

a magical and pagan flavour, a

story in which Christ never

arrived. In the background

of some of the biblical

scenes in the film on the

birth of Christ by Cath-

erine Hardwicke, the

ghost town represents

the village of Ginea. The

deserted streets come

to life: stalls, storehouses,

abandoned patrician homes,

together with the ruins of the

ghost town and the irresistible

appeal of its sheer drops make

it the backdrop chosen by

the director, where Mary and

Joseph stayed during the jour-

ney that would take them from

Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Irsina e Ferrandina

The villages of Del Perduto Amore. The squares, the streets, the

farms near Irsina’s ancient medieval town centre bear unwitting

testimony to a story deeply rooted in political ideology, passion, the

noblest of human emotions. Its heroes demonstrate decency and

severity, and a grace that that Michele Placido still sees today in

the people of Lucania.

The corners, the streets and the squares of the two country vil-

lages constitute the setting for a film on memory, on lost people

who touch the existence of others and, without meaning to, change

their lives. The countryside and the streets of these small towns

are home to scenes of political unrest, ideological passions that

speak of the values, the culture and the people of the country that

is Italy. A perfect setting for the birth of sentiments, the onset of

passions, the Utopia of reason and the flowering of the beauty of

the heart.

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Vulture Melfese, farm

Movie Tour 3

Cinema landscapes of Lucania: nature, sun and splendour. Barile, Vulture Melfese areaand Maratea

The movie tour with a biblical

theme terminates in Barile, a

heavenly village of wheat lying on

the green of a dormant volcano:

Mount Vulture, a place of contrasts

loved by the great Pasolini. From

Barile, the tour continues into the

lands of wine and water, in the movie

sites of Vulture Melfese, where the

setting, the colours, the immense

expanses delight the eyes and the

hearts of spectators and visitors

alike. As in the film Io non ho paura

(2003) by Gabriele Salvatores,

where the environment adds

a fairy tale touch to the set-

ting of the story. The tour

of Basilicata’s film set-

tings end up naturally in

Maratea, following

the footsteps of

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the heroes of La Vedovella (1964) by Sergio Siano and of Ogni

lasciato è perso (2000), by Piero Chiambretti, in which the stat-

ue of Christ Redeemer, from his awesome height, protects his

people.

Barile

The village of Arbëreshë is

the place of the “Procession of Mysteries”, also known

as the “Mission”, which as

been repeated for centuries

according to an ancient tra-

dition. The passion of Jesus

is relived every year during

the rituals of Holy Week, a

drama that concludes with a

piercing cry that makes the

earth tremble. The images of

the scenery relate the tribula-

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tions of the story, its splen-

dours and its enchantments.

Barile like Bethlehem is the

name given to the Great

Event which, in 2007, wel-

comed the Catalan actor

Enrique Irazoqui who played

Christ in the film The Gospel

according to St. Matthew,

on his arrival from Spain.

It is a place where the hu-

man and the divine succeed

in coming together thanks

to the savage beauty and

the magnificence of the environment. The great Maestro Pier Paolo Pasolini set some of his most important scenes there: the

Nativity of Our Lord and the Massacre of the Innocents. The cave-

stable of the Holy Family where Jesus Christ was born is today

part of the Town Park of the Cellars in Barile. At the time, for

Pasolini they were “pitiable places, bare and unadorned, not at

all spectacular, but steeped in mystery”. In Barile, amidst the

ravines and caves, thousands of years old, in the remote “Sheshi”

quarter, this man who left his mark on the story of the cinema

achieved a long and complex sequence with the telephoto lens

which captured the feelings and the most private expressions of

the hundreds of extras in his black and white film.

Vulture Melfese

Leafing through the photo frames

of Basilicata, the scenery of

Vulture Melfese gives pause for

thought. Its acclaimed beauty, its

natural panoramas, its histori-

cal and cultural monuments both

amaze and educate. It is here that

the story is built up of a boy who

is kidnapped by ‘monsters’ and

‘werewolves’, a group of wicked

adults, a story told in the novel Io

non ho paura by Niccolò Amaniti

and brought to the silver screen

by the director Gabriele Salva-

tores. A story told with the movie

camera shooting from low down, at

the height of a child, looking at a world

made up of incursions into the fields,

into deserts of corn. “It is the place of the soul” declared Salvatores to lo-

cal reporters, “The deep Italian South,

Magna Graecia, an Italy that is often

forgotten, where traces of the poetic

farming world are still alive today, and they lend themselves per-

fectly as the setting to incarnate ‘Acque Traverse’, the evocative

place described by Niccolò Ammaniti in his book of the same

name that was the origin of the film.” Maratea

Leaving behind the scenery of the castles, fountains of mineral

water, Aglianico wine, the movie tour takes us to the Tyrrhenian

coast, to Maratea. Enchanting and splendid, previously immortal-

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ised by Dino Risi in his 1960 film

A porte chiuse, Maratea, the pearl

of the Tyrrhenian, witnessed the

filming of the comedy La Vedovella

by Sergio Siano in its small town

square. The central part of the

film, whose atmosphere is joyous,

spicy, amusing and lighthearted,

sees the cheerful Piazza Giovanni Buraglia as the setting for the oc-

casion of the street party, with its

flirtations and the famous scene

of the pinch on the buttock in Ma-

ratea’s Via Rovita. Its position over

the gulf of Policastro is enviable,

and dominating the scene with its

extraordinary stage presence is

the statue of Christ Redeemer, to

whom a prayer is dedicated in the

tongue-in-cheek film Ogni lasciato

è perso by Piero Chiambretti.

Maratea, the village and Mount Calvello

Put on by the Allelammie di Pisticci association, the Lu-cania Film Festival has been a yearly event since 1999 and is held in the month of August in Pisticci. It has be-come a point of reference for cinema and short film lovers. It organises international short film competi-tions open to filmmakers all over the world, initiatives to increase appreciation for independent cinema, training courses in the audio-visual sector, promotions of cul-tural events, debates, conferences and recreational ac-tivities connected with the cinema and audio-vision. ZIC: zone di interesse cinematografico (zones of interest to the cinema) is one of the experimental projects that Allelammie is carrying out. These are areas to discover, using a map of itineraries interesting both to cinema and nature lovers, an addition to the services offered by the local agencies of tourism and culture.

www.lucaniafilmfestival.it

Since 2004, the Potenza International Film Festival has been sponsoring a research and study programme for the evaluation and assessment of the new interna-tional cinema, with a particular focus on new cinema in emerging countries, independent and experimental cinema, young filmmakers, new languages and new technology. Within all its sections – both competitive F

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Potenza Film Festival

Lucania Film Festival

and not – the festival advocates the awareness and dif-fusion of films by new authors notable for their stylistic and formal research and by their use of new technolo-gies and new languages. It also encourages filmmakers to share their experienc-es and promotes the appreciation and discovery of new talents in international cinema. Also connected to this Festival is the International Film Laboratory of Potenza which periodically receives important guests from the world of international cinema.

www.potenzafilmfestival.it

Io, Isabella International Film Week is the first festival in the South of Italy dedicated to creative documentaries and women’s cinema. Lasting a week, it is an interna-tional gathering which takes place every year in Maratea in the month of July. It organises a competition, a vari-ety of non-competitive sections, (the Country in Focus and two or three other specific theme sections), meet-ings, talk shows and satellite events. The Festival offers a quality selection of films and creative documentaries from all over the world; the competition is dedicated ex-clusively to works made by (and about) women, while a good 70% of the total selection is devoted to creative documentaries suitable for and/or made for the silver screen and cinema distribution.

www.ioisabella.org

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Io, Isabella

The Maratea International Film Festival is a project for the promotion of cinema and culture. Proposed by the non-profit organisation MarateaFestival, constituted in March 2009. Its purpose was to create a cultural event to award prizes for films, both Italian and foreign. The aim is to fill the town with people both in sum-mer and all year round, by means of events linked to the seventh art, meetings of international filmmakers and the invitation of special guests from the world of Italian and international cinema and important figures from the cultural scene.

www.marateafestival.com

Cinemadamare is the biggest gathering of young film-makers from all over the world. It is a travelling cin-ema that covers five regions in the South of Italy and lasts 40 days over July and August. The films are made during the Festival. Approximately one hundred Ital-ian and foreign filmmakers are given the opportunity to make their films and show them in the busiest and most beautiful piazzas in the South of Italy. Among the stops in Basilicata, Matera and Novasiri are the places where films are shown, and debates and meetings on the subject of the cinema take place. www.cinemadamare.it

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Maratea InternationalFilm Festival

Cinemadamare

The National Cinema and Music Festival of Lagonegro is a place to meet, discuss and train for musical pro-duction in the Italian cinema in all its different forms and trends, and focuses above all on young soundtrack composers. Hosted by the municipalities of Latronico, Lauria and Lagonegro, it is divided into various sections: film viewings, documentaries, training and publicity, prize-giving and concerts.

www.lagonegrocinema.it

For 15 years, the De Sica-Cinit CineClub in Vulture Melfese has been putting on Cinetica, in the Vor-rasi Cinema in Rionero in Vulture: viewings, events, appointments dedicated to the seventh art.Over the years more than 170 films have appeared on the programme, many of these rare and pre-cious documentaries with a strong emotional impact. Activities organised include school workshops, award ceremonies, in depth seminars and publishing activities.

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Lagonegro Cinema

Cinetica - Rionero in Vulture

This non-competitive exhibition of short films and works is hosted in Matera every year in the months of April/May. The Night of the Living Courtyards aims at encouraging the creativity and inventiveness of aspiring filmmakers, providing them with a place to meet and an opportunity to show their works. Registration is open to all filmmakers resident in Basilicata and the five towns adjoining the municipality of Matera: Altamura, Gravina, Santeramo, Laterza and Ginosa

. www.egghia.it

Every year, in the month of September, this Festival or-ganises a viewing of films which focus on themes regard-ing the social and political aspects of contemporary soci-ety and arranges meetings and debates on the cinema.

A travelling exhibition of films and filmed material, it is based on the formula of the old travelling cinema. Pro-moted by the Cinefabrica association, large screens and chairs are brought to areas where there is no cinema, and the great cinema classics are shown. Interviews are conducted on the subject of cinema, documentaries, short news reports aimed at reconstructing the series of historical event that have taken place in that area, pre-cede the viewing of the films on the programme.

www.cinefabrica.com

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Bella Film Festival

Cinefabrica

Mineurs by Fulvio Wetzl, 2007 The Nativity Story by Catherine Hardwicke, 2006The Omen by John Moore, 2006Il Rabdomante by Fabrizio Cattani, 2005The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson, 2003I am not scared by Gabriele Salvatores, 2002Ogni lasciato è perso by Piero Chiambretti 2000Terra Bruciata by Fabio Segatori, 1999Del perduto Amore by Michele Placido, 1998Plebeian Nymph by Lina Wertmuller, 1996The Star Maker by Giuseppe Tornatore, 1995Il sole anche di notte by Paolo e Vittorio Taviani, 1990King David by Bruce Beresford, 1985 Three brothers by Francesco Rosi, 1981Christ stopped at Eboli by Francesco Rosi, 1979 Volontari per destinazione ignota by Alberto Negrin, 1978 The tree of Guernica by Fernando Arrabal, 1975 Qui comincia l’avventura by Carlo di Palma, 1975 Il tempo dell’inizio by Luigi Di Gianni, 1974

The Most Important films made in Basilicata

Allonsanfan by Paolo e Vittorio Taviani, 1974 Year One by Roberto Rossellini, 1974The black decameron by Piero Vivarelli, 1972Don’t torture a duckling by Lucio Fulci, 1972 More than a miracle by Francesco Rosi, 1967 Made in Italy by Nanni Loy, 1965The Gospel according to St. Matthew by Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964 The Demon by Brunello Rondi, 1963 Gli anni Ruggenti by Luigi Zampa, 1962 La Vedovella by Silvio Siani, 1962Italia ’61 by Jan Lenica, 1961 Viva l’Italia! by Roberto Rossellini, 1961 A porte chiuse by Dino Risi, 1960La nonna Sabella by Dino Risi, 1957 The devil is a woman by Alberto Lattuada, 1953 Le due sorelle by Mario Volpe, 1950 Nel mezzogiorno qualcosa è cambiato by Carlo Lizzani, 1949

Finished printing in November 2009

Original idea and texts:Mariateresa Cascinowww.mtcom.info

Publisher:Maria Teresa Lotito

Graphics and pagination:Brucomela Designwww.brucomeladesign.it

Printing:Centro Stampa Matera

Photos by: Archivio Apt Basilicata/Concorso Obiettivo Matera 2008, Gerardo Cecere (p. 40-42), Blu Video (p. 14-19-22-29-31-52-59-62), Archivio Brucomela, Stock.xcng, Google Images, Stockexpert (p. 81-82).And with the kind permission of:Archivio Fotografico del Comune di Matera (p. 4-44-45-46-47-48-50), Cineteca Lucana (locandine e frames), Donato Michele Mazzeo/Andrea Titaro (p. 18-20-70), Antonio Moliterni (p. 52), Antonio Catena (p. 36-37-67) Fulvio Wetzl (p. 56).

Bibliographical References:Giulio Martini, I LUOGHI DEL CINEMA, Touring Club Italiano, Milano, 2005. Domenico Notarangelo, IL VANGELO SECONDO MATERA, Città del Sole Edizioni, Reggio Calabria, 2008.Giuseppe Papasso, DIZIONARIO DEL CINEMA PUGLIA & BASILICATA, Spot Italia, 2006.Attilio Coco, VISIONI E IMMAGINI CINEMATOGRAFICHE DELLA BASILICATA, Possidente di Avigliano, Piane-talibro, 2002.Emilia Palmieri, I SASSI NEL CINEMA, Altrimedia Edizioni, Matera, 2007.Donato Michele Mazzeo, CRISTO E’ NATO A BARILE, Ed. Basilicata Arbëreshë, Barile, 2007.

Web sites:www.sassiweb.itwww.cinemavvenire.itwww.mymovies.itwww.ibs.itwww.wikipedia.itwww.letteratour.it

Mariateresa Cascino would like to thank Domenico Notarangelo for his precious collaboration and also An-tonio Catena, Gaetano Martino, Enrico Ruggieri, Donato Michele Mazzeo, Antonio Moliterni, Salvatore Verde, Pascal Zullino.

Guida stampata con il finanziamento della Legge 135 art. 5 e D.P.R. 24 luglio 2007 n. 158 – Progetto Interre-gionale “Itinerari d’Autore - Viaggio culturale nei luoghi dei grandi personaggi d’Italia” – Responsabile Lorenzo Affinito; Progettista Coordinatore Elena Iacoviello.

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